Abstract

With the discovery of Australopithecus, the concepts of bipedalism, the emergence of the open savannas, and the separation of pongids and hominids (bipedal-savanna-cladogeny; the BSC model) were integrated in an attempt to interpret the keys to the emergence of man. However, palæoclimatology, palaeoecology, and the morphology of A. ramidus and A. afarensis show that early hominids were better adapted to the tropical forest. Consequently, the BSC model is no longer valid, even though the relationship between open savannas and bipedalism can still be invoked to explain cladogeny between Paranthropus and Homo. That the BSC model is still thriving could be due to preconceived ideas as to what constitutes a human being — ideas that are projected into the past to explain our origins